BFL publishes Sustainable Finance Framework

Bromford Flagship LiveWest (BFL) has published the framework that will govern how it raises green and social and sustainable finance in future. The framework has achieved a SQS1 rating from Moodys as SPO provider.

The framework was published in September alongside admission particulars for a new £2 billion note programme, the framework BFL will use for future bond issuance.

It comes shortly after the first full-year sustainability and impact report for the combined group, published in August, which shows £161 million invested in existing homes, including 1,192 retrofits. A further 2,871 new homes were built in the year.

The report gives the first whole-group picture of a landlord with more than 127,000 homes and almost 300,000 customers. Of the new homes, 97 per cent were affordable and 1,135 were for social rent. 83 per cent of the group’s homes are now rated EPC C or better, against an ambition of every feasible home at that level by 2030, and 99.8 per cent met the Decent Homes Standard.

The Sustainable Finance Framework, published this week, was awarded Moody’s top grade for a second party opinion, SQS1 (“Excellent”), meaning the ratings agency judged it to be fully in line with international green and social bond principles.

It limits the use of any money raised to three categories: affordable housing, green buildings and energy efficiency, rules out spending on anything linked to fossil fuels, weapons, tobacco or gambling.

The £24mn retrofit programme, backed by £7.2mn in grant funding, delivered 3,292 individual measures including more than 1,000 solar PV systems.

At Victory Villas in Cirencester, external wall insulation designed to match the surrounding Cotswold stone lifted the average SAP score by 20 points, and is expected to save each household around £2,240 a year on heating and hot water.

Beyond this, the report records more than 45,000 visits to customers’ homes during the year and more than 4,950 tenancy sustainment referrals, alongside the work of the group’s homelessness charity, Hopestead.

The Sustainability Impact Report and the Sustainable Finance Framework are both available at www.bfl-places.co.uk/invest-with-us.

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Jo Makinson, chief finance officer at BFL, said: “Last year we raised £400 million through sustainable notes and bonds, all of it allocated to eligible affordable housing and energy efficiency, and the allocation reporting was independently reviewed.

“We plan to build more than 50,000 homes over the next 15 years, around half of them for social rent, and we expect that sustainable finance will play a big part in how we fund this.”

Glynnis Poole, director of investment and sustainability, said: “The numbers in the report matter, but the reason they matter is what’s behind them. A customer in Great Cressingham who wasn’t sure about a heat pump and now has a house rated EPC A.

“Eleven houses in Cirencester had solid walls that couldn’t be insulated the usual way, and there were issues with damp. We wrapped insulation round the outside, matched to the local stone so it still looks right, and fixed the ventilation.”